Mourn the dead
by RoeRemedy
Summary: My take on what happens after Eli's death. Note: Discountinued. So sorry guys. I had a complete plot on what happens further until at the end the homeplanet of the Vortigaunts would have been freed. However, as I was contemplating to start again and write a new chapter, marc laidlaw released 'epistle 3' and since then I've kind of made my peace. Sorry.
1. Aftermath

_Good day,  
this fanfic occurs directly after Half life 2, Episode 2. Also, Gordon speaks, sorry. I thought it over a long time before making that decison, but there, he speaks. If you wanna know my reasoning, just ask, don't wanna spam everyone here. Anyhow, I've mostly been writing fantasy short stories the past few years so I'm pretty much just writing this for a change of pace. Fun and all that.  
Enjoy._

As she wept, the last few minutes reran in Gordon's mind. The joy that had engulfed all of them in the light of the successful launch. The possibility to finally gather more knowledge about his mysterious 'employer', possibly leading to Gordon's freedom form his creepy influence.

Eli telling him how proud he was.

Eli..

Killed by an advisor. Slaughtered while Gordon just watched, unable to move, unable to do anything to save him.

Eli, lying dead on the ground right in front of him, his otherwise so happy and cheerful daughter in agonizing tears. Gordon tried to move his head, but the pain in his neck seemed excruciating. Had the advisor thrown him on his neck? He dimly remembered having hit the wall and the floor soon afterward but... it didn't feel like the fall itself hat hit him that hard. Maybe the advisors grab had damaged his spine.

All these thoughts were more or less in the back of his head. He was focused on Elis lifeless body and Alyx crying over him, wanting to come over, comfort her, mourn with her.. Eli had been a good friend. Despite all the weirdness in these past few days, Gordon had been so happy to see him, had hoped for a chance to truly reconcile with him as soon as the borealis thing was over. Not just about the mystery-man, but... life. From his point of view, the resonance cascade had just happened about two weeks before and since then he barely even found time to sleep or eat, not to mention truly rest.

But he would never speak to Eli again. Gordon felt a nauseating sadness dwelling up in him and he quickly focused on his body again. As he tried to move his toes and fingertips, the felt fuzzy and cold at the same time, yet he could move them, - therefore, his spine couldn't be all that damaged. While he was still trying to get moving, he heard loud footsteps and men shouting something. People came running in and stopped in their tracks immediately.

„No...NO!", someone cried as other voices shouted their names while they recalled the lift to come down to them. „Eli! Alyx, is he...? Where's Freeman?!"

Gordon could never really tell the voices of the camp personal or refugees apart. There were just so many of them and usually, so little time to get to know them. Why couldn't they see him, though? At the second part of the question, Alyx hat turned around slightly for the first time after her fathers death. Her beautiful face was pained and tear stained while she still held her fathers corpse close to her chest. Looking at him she looked even more frightened and seemed conflicted for a moment when several men came running out the elevator towards them. Only now he realized that he seemed to be stuck under something. He started to regain more feeling, helped by the familiar sensation of blood trickling down his spine. He grunted quietly, watching how two of the man sat with Alyx and her father while the others came toward him. He felt a tiny, angry pang in his head, watching as one of the others put his hand on Alyx shoulder, although he was soon preoccupied with his own situation as the other three tried to pull something – whatever it was – off his side. As they freed him and pulled him back on his feet, he suddenly understood why he hadn't been able to move his neck. A barren of steel had been blocking his back and neck, functionally immobilizing him. Was that why his head was bleeding? His sight was a bit woozy while the cracked voice of his HEV suit told him that there would be morphine administered, but he didn't really care right now.

Alyx was still holding her father. The others tried to make her let go, That she couldn't truly mourn if she didn't accept his death in the first place but she wouldn't have it. She held on to him tightly, quietly whimpering for him not to leave her.

He staggered toward her uncertainly before kneeling beside her, putting his arm around her back.

She didn't seem to mind. Holding on to her father, leaning into Gordon, she just wept.

It took some time to get her to leave him. He didn't know if hours or mere minutes passed, nor did he care. After he had finally managed to get up to comfort her, they had stayed at her fathers side for as long as he felt was right for her, before he slowly got her to get up. At that point, she hadn't resisted anymore. Others had come, almost speechless in shock and mourning, taking the body. As he had slowly lead Alyx away he caught a quick glimpse of doctor Kleiner staring in at the corpse in absolute shock.

This man too, had lost one of his oldest friends.

People down there had helpfully advised him where he would find Alyx quarters as he slowly moved her. She wouldn't look where they went, clinging to him, still sobbing on his steel-covered chest while he just held her close, guiding her uncertain steps through the elevator and up to the base. As they stepped through the hall people looked at them in confusion. Everybody seemed to have heard that something had happened, but they didn't know what. At first, few of them seemingly wanted to ask him what was going on but he stared at them and they quickly left him alone. He didn't know what his stare contained right now. He felt unbelievable empty inside, sadness and rage dancing somewhere in his core. He knew he would probably be mad with anger later. It was his usual reaction to loss. Especially when he felt at fault.

Reaching her quarters he slowly opened the door, slightly surprised that she actually had a room to herself but all the more grateful for it. He brought her inside, closed the door and sat her down on the bed, still stroking her back. In the last two or three minutes, her sobbing had grown quieter. He didn't know what to say to her, rocking her back and forth in an attempt to calm her, trying to murmur unformulated nothing in a reassuring way.

His own emotions seemed incredibly unimportant right now. He had to take care of her.

When she was sleeping, there would still be time to go insane.

It didn't take long for her to fall asleep in his arms. He smirked sadly at the irony. Had Eli been alive there would have been all kinds of jokes about the two them being alone in her room. Joy, he himself would have probably been really happy to spend some quality time with this astounding woman, but now... well. He lay her down slowly, careful not to wake her before putting the nearby blanket over her so she wouldn't wake from freezing. He went outside for a moment to get some water and left the bottle on her makeshift bedside-crate. Looking at her sleeping, the sadness inside him started to become clearer. He had lost a good friend. She had lost her father. In a weird way, he was sad for both of them. Moving out of the room, quietly shutting the door, the sadness grew larger, but was soon overtaken by rage.

Now she was safe and asleep.

Now he was free to make somebody pay.


	2. Salt

As he ran through to corridors, people called his name. They wanted to know what had happened. Why were he and Alyx still here? Why had Alyx been crying her eyes out and what was with big commotion going on down by the hangar?  
He didn't answer but kept going till the exit. These people would get their answers soon enough, just not from him. He couldn't take this right now. He had to get out. Find some combine and kill them. Slowly.  
As he reached the garages, another man shouted his name. "Freeman! Calhouns troop has returned! They said hes been captured by the old salt mine!"  
Barney!  
Gordons mind stopped dead in it's tracks. He would not lose another friend. Not now. Not again.  
Never again! His jaw tensed as he nodded at the man in gratitude and ran towards the door where he knew his car would still wait in between the walls.  
"Hey! Dr Freeman! Don't go alone, they are heavily armed and,-" Gordon didn't hear what else they supposedly were. He didn't care. He got to his car, opened the gates, jumped in and drove off. He had seen the salt mines on a map earlier and in a weird way he was happy they had captured Barney. Finally someone he could actually save! So many people had died around him. Everywhere he went, people had been so happy to see him, willing to help him wherever they could in the full knowledge that it would probably kill them. And it had. He couldn't count on how many people he hadn't been able to save, but it had been far to many.  
He would not allow Barney to die.

It was a short drive compared to the large distances he had covered in the last few days but it still took him half an our to get near to the mine and about another twenty minutes to hike close enough for him to see the combine camp. As far as he could see, it was to small to be called an actual base, assuming they hadn't spread into the mine to far. He could see four Soldiers guarding the entrance, two of them manning rifles. He crawled through the grass, carefully trying to stay hidden behind the rocks surrounding the entrance until he was too close to stay hidden. Grabbing a grenade he sprinted forward, through and went back into hiding before they could spot him. A short explosion later, he ran up to the entrance. As he selected the trusty Pulse rifle he often used against the combine, he was hit with a short punch of regret. He would love to use the crowbar instead, breaking each and every soldiers skull. A slower death. A painful, agonizing death.  
But that would take more time – precious time, as long as he didn't know what had happened to his friend. He paused before taking the magnum instead, knowing it would give him greater satisfaction in battle. Sometimes he wondered what had happened to that peaceful young scientist he had once been. Not exactly a pacifist, but... he had certainly never felt the urge to crack anyone's skull open with a crowbar.  
Entering the mine he cursed quietly. War made monsters of them all.

As he followed the old railway he quickly realized that this was more than just a little combine camp. The main shaft was old and obviously not used very much, but the rails didn't seem very rusty, as if they had been used recently. The next corridor going to the side revealed some old lights burning and two more soldiers who were met with bullets immediately. The doors were new. Very new. Gordon didn't know what this was but he had the sudden, very clear thought that he had to find Barney as fast as possible. He reloaded the gun and kicked the door open. Another soldier shot at him, nearly missing his head before getting a bullet in said body part. The next second felt very long for Gordon. As he took in his surroundings, his fear and anger grew to new heights. The room was covered in white walls, blood staining the floor and the bed that was propped up waist-high in the middle of the room. A combine... butcher stood there, a saw in his hand, seemingly unsure what he was supposed to do now. A resistance member lay on the table. His legs cut off and replaced with weird prosthetics, his stomach opened, the insides lying bare and partially connected to cables.  
Stalkers. They were building new stalkers. Here. Out of resistance members.  
He shot the guy in the head twice and stared at him a moment before kicking his skull as hard as he could. "Bastard!", he muttered before checking on the resistance member. The poor sod had a pulse but.. his eyes were almost dead. Only a faint scream and the essence of agony remained. The scientist sighed before shooting him. Another death. Another person he couldn't save. He remained with the body a mere second before running out of the room. He had to find Barney. The image of his friend lying on a table, cut open and vandalized flashed in his mind and he ran even faster. His lungs burned as he kicked open room after room, sometimes empty, sometimes containing more soldiers, more butchers, more victims.  
At the end of the floor he hadn't found barney. Just death.  
He felt tears well up in his eyes. He was breaking. He could feel it.  
A short sob escaped his lungs before he started running again. Maybe Barney wasn't in an operating room. Maybe they were still torturing him, trying to gather information.  
Or he was already dead and they had burned or eaten his body.  
He shooed this thought away, clenching to his gun. He would find him.  
He reached another corridor and was suddenly confronted with about six or seven Guards.  
 _Oh crap.._

 _"What a lousy day"_ , Barney thought as they tried smack his brains out once again. He could still feel the pain but it seemed.. distant, somehow. They must have been cutting and hitting him for hours now. It was no wonder he had gone numb. His mind had started to escape quite some time ago and he was dimly aware that this was a sign of either near death or insanity, but.. why would he care any longer? His friends were probably all dead already, anyway. That thought in itself saddened him, exposed what little was left of him.  
The next blow hit him hard. _"That's what you get for going sentimental all up in you brains..."_ , he thought sadly as the combine screamed at him to tell him... something. He couldn't even quite understand by now what kind of information they wanted. Not that it mattered.

After he had boarded the train out of city 17, he'd been happy and quite relived. They made it. He had seen the Citadel blowing up from afar and couldn't contain his happiness – The center of the combines Empire on earth had been destroyed. After a short time however, the ground shook and he could hear explosions occur somewhere nearby. Soon after they had entered the forest, they crossed few bridges, going through the woods with high velocity until they came to a sudden halt. The rails were blocked by crushed stones, making further travel by train impossible. He rounded up the people and they started to walk the way. Most of them were in more or less acceptable medical condition so they made good progress in short time. It had still been a long way to go to white forest base, but at least out here in the woods they could relax a little. Even during normal occupational times there weren't many combine around the forest, bur right now with the citadel blowing up and all, barney was pretty sure that there would be even less enemy's around than usual. That was, until they reached the first hilltop.  
They had been hiking for a couple of hours when he heard it; the muffled screeching of striders. He got his binoculars out and didn't take long to spot them; Striders, tanks and hunters in high numbers walking down the railroad. Walking towards white forest.  
"O Fuck. Oh fuck no... no!", he exclaimed, dropping his binoculars. His first impulse was to get everyone going, to run to the base as fast as they could. They had made about half the way now, but they had taken their time to, thinking there was no rush – if they hurried they'd might make it in two to three hours.  
But was that wise?  
He had a duty to protect these people as good as he could so he had to at least consider the possibility, that they might be better off hiding somewhere in the woods instead of going to white forest base, where those troops where surely headed.  
He was proud to being able to consider the thought for almost two seconds, before springing into action. "Hey! Enemy on the move, they got striders, hunters and other troops! Let's get going! If we hurry we can make it to the base in two hours!" They packed up and left.  
An hour later he was captured.

They had been hearing the combine troops coming closer for a while at that point. Barney roughly knew his way around the forest so they'd been able to avoid capture a couple of times already. Than it happened; The combine seemed to have taken over the old saltmine. At least, that's what Barney knew by now. He had originally planned to take a break there because everyone had been sweating and dying for a break after jogging uphills for an hour. Thinking the mine was still abandoned, he went to the entrance, trying to make sure the mine was empty, before signaling the hidden refugees to follow. Then he remembered a dull pain in his head before everything went black. He woke up to the sound of electricity and shouting.

As they fastened metal clams on his chest area to shock him more effectively, Barney wondered what had happened to the refugees that were with him. Had they made it to the base without him? Did they altert anyone of his capture? He hoped they hadn't tried to rescue him on their own, because if they did, they were surely dead by now.  
Dead or worse.  
One of the combine winced, having wired the electricity wrong, effectively burning himself for a moment. Barney couldn't help but chuckle a little bit to himself. He wished they'd just get going and kill him already. The chance of any refugees surviving, making it to the base, finding people who were still alive after the fucking strider attack and building a rescue team were laughable slim. Heck, who knew if anyone in this area was still alive? When he had heard the earthquakes before the train stopped, he also heard the bridge they had just crossed tumble. It wasn't to far off to assume that Alyx and Gordon had crashed themselves. And maybe hadn't even made it out alive of the car wreck.  
Barney shook his head. He couldn't decide what was best to believe. His rational part told him, it would be wise to accept that everyone else was probably dead, that he should just give into his own death. But his personality in itself rebelled. They had done almost impossible things. He refused to believe his friends had just died, after just blowing up the citadel, after finally achieving a real victory against the combine! They were alive! The had to be! They would rescue him and he would make it the base and... rest. He would rest. And sleep. And finally find time to reunite with his friends, to hear what the heck had really happened to Gordon, to sleep.. to live.  
Was he dying?  
They said, when you die, a feeling of peace embraces you. Then it gets dark and there's a light you want to go to. He felt like going to the light right now. Everything hurt. Everything was horrible, everything felt sad...  
But the room remained around him and as the soldier wanted to turn on the shocks, he got a jumbled radio signal that stopped him in his tracks. He answered an inaudible answer and two of the three soldiers went outside, leaving anti-citizen three alone with one enemy.  
Just the one.  
Barney's thoughts went up. He jammed his arms around, trying to free himself as the guard smacked him in the face with a baton. It hurt. Badly. And it was no use to struggle. Of course it was no use, but what was going on outside? After turning on the shocks they would have killed him soon after, he knew that much. He couldn't hear anything from outside. No fighting noises, just the mumbled radio chatter of the combine. Suddenly, gunfire. Someone let out a short, painful scream before two explosions were audible.  
Barneys heart pounded heavy in his chest. He didn't dare to hope. The soldier stirred, took up his rifle, stood behind him and put the gun to Barneys head as the door burst open and the soldier was shot dead.  
Through blurred sight, Barney saw a tall figure in a bright orange HEV-suit and his pain drew back as he was flooded with relief and endorphins. "Gordon..", he exhaled quietly. Exhausted, happy and confused he tried to blink his eyes clearer. His friend still stood in the doorway, the gun still up. Barney could hear him breathing heavy and in a somewhat pained fashion. The man lowered his gun, came closer and stood in front of him for a moment before almost collapsing in hugging the still-bound, bare-chested Barney.  
"You're alive...", he whispered raspy, clenching him tightly.  
Barney stared ahead in surprise before clearing his throat;"Gordon, I'm.. happy to see you too, and all but.. If you could just loosen my shackles that would be grand.", he said, somewhat embarrassed but concerned all the same. It was not like Gordon to go around hugging people. Never had been. He heard his friend sob dryly two or three times before the man stood back, looking for the switch to get Barney free. The latter could see him now, clearly. He swallowed hard.  
He had never seen his friend look worse than right now.  
His HEV suit was covered in dents, blood and bullet holes, A large laceration at his skull dripping more blood down onto him. Well, that wasn't that new, the last few times he had seen the man he had pretty much looked somewhat like this. His eyes though had always sparked with determination and militancy, with the will to stop the combine, to not have them let their way with Earth.  
Now thy just looked weary and sunken. Not just like days without shut-eye, nights of worry and combat, bad food, no showers... He looked broken. It was frightening.

While Barney had been analyzing his friend, said person found the right switches to loosen his shackles. He wheezed in pain as he tried to get up, Gordon lending him a hand to get to his feet. "ye' think you can walk?", he asked quietly, concerned. Barney nodded. "As long as noone shoots me again, It should be fine." Gordon nodded in reply and rummaged uncertainly in the weapon-storage of his HEV-suit, avoiding Barneys eyes. "Will you take one of the pulse-rifles or want a lighter weapon?"  
Barney shrugged, picking up the soldiers rifle who'd been torturing him minutes before, kicking the corpse in the stomach. "Have to see how I'll hold up out there..", he paused, selecting his next words carefully; "Gordon... what happened? To you, I mean, I... I saw the striders marching toward the base, but...", he gestured vaguely. Gordon kept looking down. He took his own rifle and started fumbling with the ammunition while clearing his throat. "They er... yeah, they attacked the base and... we blew 'em up before they could get there. Got a rocket into the portal too and blocked the, er... the transmission to the combine overworld. So that went.. went great. We got a transmission from that damn Mossman about something we had to check out and,-", he tensed, swallowed hard before continuing. "And.. yeah, we.. Alyx and I we were gonna fly to the north pole to check it out. And... as we... as we wanted to leave.. two advisors burst trough the roof and they er... They grabbed us. I mean, Alyx and me, and.. Eli could struggle himself free... Somehow their psychic attack didn't hit him as hard, so he grabbed a steel pipe and attacked them, and...", he looked at Barney, pain and regret filling his words, "they killed him. Sucked out his brain and stuff and... if D.O.G hadn't come through the roof then Alyx and I would have been dead as well."  
Gordon finally plugged the ammo in and looked at Barney sadly. He felt empty now. His rage was gone, his anxiety concerning Barney's fate had obviously vanished as well – now Sadness solely resided in his core. His friend just stared at him, seemingly troubled to comprehend every aspect of the situation. Then he stuffed his hands in his pockets, looked to the floor and walked up and down.  
After what seemed like an eternity, he sighed heavily, stopping, facing the ceiling. "How's Alyx?", he finally said.  
Gordon looked at him, surprised. "She's... shocked, obviously, but I think she'll be okay."  
"Hm." Barney nodded, absently rubbing the wounds on his arms, checking the cheap racks for his protective gear they had taken from him earlier. He found his Kevlar west and a blood stained shirt that must have belonged to somebody else. Putting it on he eyed Gordon sternly. Now it was obvious why his friend was so beat down. Barney was sure he had taken care of Alyx himself. Probably spend a lot of time comforting her before hearing that another one of his friends had been captured. Not to mention that he to had probably seen loads of people die every day in the past week. Wherever he had been.  
He sighed again and looked at Gordon, who was eyeing the ceiling again. Then he looked around the room before saying;"How 'bout we get outside and.. talk about all this later? Just.. torture room and all that.. not too great, right now." Gordon nodded silently, stepping outside, Barney picking up a rifle, following his steps. "How did you know I was here, anyway? Did my group made it back to the base?" Another nod as they walked up the mineshaft. Gordon wasn't too sure he had gotten to every combine in the base but he got exceedingly to tired to care. Stomping out of the mine they realized that nighttime had come. The moon shone bright in the night sky. Were it not for the blood and the corpses everywhere it would have seemed quite peaceful. They stood at the entrance for a moment before continuing their walk in silence. Barney felt that Gordon wanted to talk. To say something. He forced himself to stay quiet and just waited. The news of Elis death would rock him hard soon enough, he knew that. Whenever someone died, he stored it inside himself until such time as he was in a safe space and everything was taken care of before going into grief. He knew a lot of people at the base. People who would help him to keep going and with whom we could mourn together, who had spend years and years in the resistance, seeing good man and women die all the time.  
They were used to it.  
Gordon wasn't. Barney didn't know what exactly had happened to his friend, but he knew that he probably only knew himself, Dr Kleiner, Alyx and.. Eli. There weren't a lot of friends to catch his fall.  
As they crossed a small hilltop, Gordon sighed and stopped, staring at the sky for a moment. "Say... How much time has passed?"  
Barney frowned. "Between what exactly? I'd know several things you could mean..."  
Gordon turned around, looking at him uncomfortably. "Between.. let's say two days after the resonance cascade and the day.. you met me at that train station."  
Barney looked at him and swallowed, insecure with the implication. "nineteen years, Gordon. It's been nineteen years since the resonance cascade and the seven-hour war."  
Gordon visibly swallowed, put a hand to his head for a moment, rubbing his forehead. He sighed. "Nineteen, hm? That's.. a long time." He stopped, looked into the sky again. "What happened to you? Back then, I mean."  
Barney shrugged. "Fought aliens during the resonance cascade. Got a few people out of black mesa. Monitored the seven-hour war without actually being able to do much. Helped to build the resistance after the combine invaded us.." he sighed deep. "...lost Lauren to a Headcrab-attack." Gordon looked at him, shocked. Lauren had been Barney's long-time Girlfriend. They had been planning on getting married. He sighed heavy. Now knowing that two decades had passed, it wasn't to surprising that there'd been.. casualties. That didn't make it any better. "I'm... sorry to hear that.", he murmured. Barney waved it aside. "been alone twelve years now. Happened to many people, and with the suppression field, well...", he snorted. "After she died I went undercover. Made me a lot more enemies withing the resistance, but.. I didn't care at the time. 't was a relief to finally give that shit up now though, I tells ya'." If he had had some moonshine, he'd drink it now. He could feel the bitterness rise up in him, and out here, in the quiet night, Elis death started getting to him. "One day I got a coded message from Eli. To be on the lookout for someone on your train. Had no idea it would be you though. Until that time, I..", he looked at his friend, a sad smile on his face. "I thought you'd died on Xen or in the aftermath. I was so glad, to..", suddenly, tears escaped his eyes. "Crap.. now I'm getting emotional.", he wiped his face with a dirty sleeve, looking at him sincere. "I was really glad to see you back. And... even though I'm sad that Eli is...", he swalloed hard. "...dead. And knowing that I'm probably going to be a lot sadder tomorrow, I... I'm just happy that you're back and that.. so many survived. I mean.. from what you told me, Alyx and Dr Kleiner survived and our work saved so many people...", he smiled sadly into the sky. "While mourning the dead we mustn't forget to celebrate the living, you know?"  
Gordon nodded, wiping his eyes with his hands.  
"So tell me,-", Barney continued. "what happened to you? I don't want to seem blunt, but... you don't look like you aged... at all. I know we made jokes that you look young but... you didn't just age well, did you?" he looked at him, serious.  
Gordon sighed again, grimacing at his friend. "Well... I'm not sure, how, but... After the resonance cascade,-"

 _"Mr. Fre-eman."_  
Time froze. Gordon felt very cold, very suddenly and knew exactly who this was. He tried to say something, scream at the guy who seemed like he was walking towards him from the moon, scream at him to stop, to leave him alone, to take respectability,- just something.  
But he couldn't scream.  
He couldn't move.  
He could just stare at the mysterious man approaching him, waiting what he intended to do this time.


	3. In between

Gordon stared at the suitet man in shock. He kept walking, mid-air, straightening his tie as if it was the most common thing in the world to do so. He tried to breath but couldn't.  
The man in the suit came closer and remained about 20 feet in front of him, suspended in thin air, finally speaking again. _"Mr...Free-man... While my, eeeemployers feel, that... you a-are doing r-ather well... right, now, I musst, tell you that, yo-u are not to tell, your... friend, of our little... arrangement."_ His cold eyes seemed to glow in an unholy light, as he continued; _"Should you, do, other-wisse You might, find, yourself in, a ra-ther, uncomfortable, situation._ " He chuckled cold before vanishing as quickly as he had come.

Time came back.

Gordon stared to the dot where the mysterious man had stood until just about now. His breathing got to a rapid, heavy fashion. Did the man watch him at all times? Would he pick him out of this environment as soon as he had fulfilled whatever task he wanted him to fulfill?  
Was this man responsible for Eli's death? He had died, moments after telling Gordon that he had information about the mysterious man and that he was willing to share them, did this guy,-  
"Gordon, what's wrong?"  
He blinked. As he looked to his side, Barney had come closer and watched him in a worried gaze. "You look like you just saw a ghost. Look.. you don't have to tell me everything if it makes you uncomfortable, I just wondered,-"  
"No, it's fine.. It's nothing.", Gordon interrupted, trying to get his heart-rate down. "It's just all a lot to take in you know. Look, I... I don't know how the Resonance cascade worked out for you in detail, but form my point of view I spend the following time fighting my way through black mesa before traveling to Xen, killing more monsters there, including a wacko alien-controlling emperor, and then..", he paused. "I blacked out. When I came back to my senses, I was in a train. As I got out of the train.. I met you again."  
Barney blinked. There was no humor in Gordon's voice. He looked dead serious. "Are you saying..", he hesitated. "Are you saying that you have no memory of the last twenty years?"  
Gordon shook his head sadly. "I'm saying, the last twenty years.. from your point of view, didn't exist to me. From my point of view, the resonance cascade was about.. two weeks ago, tops."  
"Wow. That's...", he breathed out hard. "pretty weird. And you have no idea what happened or how, I mean..."  
Gordon looked at him silently. He didn't say no. He just looked at him, as serious as he could, hoping he'd get the message.  
"We should get to the car. The others will be worried sick about you.", he muttered and started walking again.  
"Yeah, yeah, whatever.. what do you mean, car, did you steal one of the combine trucks or what?"  
"Nah... you'll see."

As they got to the muscle car, Barney let out an excited laugh. "You got the Dodge charger! I can't believe they let you have this baby! When I wanted it they wouldn't even let me do one of their refugee-drives. Saying trouble would follow me and all that, but then they gave it to you?", he laughed again. Gordon chuckled lightly. Even though trouble did follow in his own wake, it was good to joke about something. The heart-to-heart with Barney had done more to tend to his wounds than any morphine his suit could inject, despite the creepy interruption of the suited man.  
"Wanna drive?", he offered quietly, but Barney shook his head slightly, climbing into the other seat. "I'd love to, but there's this burning sensation in my feet, legs, upper and lower body and.. well, you know. Pretty much everywhere. Don't wanna pass out while driving that thing."  
Gordon nodded and got in. He got carsick with other drivers anyway.

As they approached the base, a guard shone his light on them and grinned as he recognized them. "Barney! You're alive! You made it Dr. Freeman!", he exclaimed, opening the gates to let them in. As they came closer to the garage the mood got to them again. Eli's death occurred just a couple of hours ago. In their reconciliation they had almost blocked it out. Had momentarily forgotten the loss that had befallen all of them, but now the memory returned and darkened their thoughts.  
"So... here we are again.", Barney said solemn, as he got out of the car. "Haven't been to white forest in quite a while... I just hope everyone knows I'm on their side."  
Gordon nodded in agreement. He did not want to see what would happen if someone mistook his friend for a CP-officer.  
"So... want me to get you to sickbay or something?"  
Barney smirked. "I want you to get a little shut-eye, but knowing how things go, you probably haven't been around here long enough to get any quarters assigned or even shown were the showers are, did you?"  
Gordon shook his head.  
"Typical. When was the last time you slept, anyway?"  
"You mean like, proper sleep or counting naps?" His friend gave him a critical look. "Like, maybe twenty years ago?"  
Barney frowned. "Do me a favor.. Don't start saying things like 'I haven't had a coffee since twenty years.' and all that, okay?", he sighed. "Looking at your head and the rest of your right ear, I'd say you could use sickbay as much as me. How 'bout I show you the showers and some spare clothes and afterwards you get yourself checked out too?"  
Gordon nodded. He could barely remember what it felt like to not wear an HEV-suit at all hours.  
"Good. It's about time anyway. You look like you haven't had a shower in twenty years."

"Did you use your head as a battering ram, Doctor Freeman?", Dr Farlain asked as he pulled another splinter from Gordon's head. He grimaced. "Well.. it seemed to big for a needle cushion, so I thought...", he left the sentence unfinished while the Doctor kept on cleaning and stitching his cuts and lacerations. At some point, Gordon had lost a part of his right ear, half of his auricle as the doctor said. He didn't care much. It had been stitched as well and shouldn't impair his hearing much, according to the doctor.  
"Are you almost done, Gordon?", Barney asked, leaning in through the door. The doctor had taken care of him earlier, covering most of him in bandages. He mostly had harsh bruises, lacerations, incinerations and a few broken ribs. Gordon had tons of splinters stuck in his head and neck from whichever explosions he'd last come from. The oozing red wound on his right arm were the hazard suit had kept injecting him with morphine, was also a great sight for the doctor, calling this method "absurdly dangerous", while praising the protective armor the suit had provided. Other than bruises, nits and dents, lacerations and the few o-too-tiny-bone-fractures he was "super healthy.", the doctor exclaimed.  
"Shouldn't you be in bed already, Barney?", the doctor asked, eying the man grimly.  
"Sure doc, I'd love to, I just have to assign Gordon a quarter so he'll actually have a place to sleep after your done with him."  
The examiner muttered something in annoyance but nodded all the same. "You can have him as soon as I'm finished putting this bandage on his head."  
Gordon looked at the man in shock. "You want to bandage my head?"  
"Sure, your cuts need to be protected!", the doctor exclaimed and started wrapping bandage around his head.  
Barney fought his laughter and lost.

As they walked through the corridors, Gordon tried to memorize where they were going while unwrapping his head. "Shouldn't you leave the thing on? To protect your cuts and bruised?", Barney asked smugly, guiding his friend to the dormitories.  
"I don't see you wearing any fabric over those ugly cuts on your head, so shut up."  
Barney chuckled and stopped at an old door. "There we are. You're in luck, Gordon, you get the last single room available in this base." he unlocked the door with a very old key. "I wouldn't be to open to tell everyone your room number though, otherwise you might find yourself with too much company." He handed him the key, yawning. "So, any other question or can I go and sleep till next week?"  
Gordon shook his head silently.  
"Then nighty night, Gordon."  
"Yeah.. good night."  
He watched the former security guard leave before entering the small room. It was bigger than he imagined, that is, it was about 7 square meters big with a cot, a small desk and a chair. What luxury.  
He debated with himself for a moment whether to go to sleep right away or not. He decided not to. Instead, he grabbed a chunky piece of paper and a pencil from the desk and wrote a quick note, leaving the room again. A few minutes later he returned, killed the light and lay down. It wasn't to comfortable, but he didn't care and didn't have long to think about it anyway.  
Within three minutes he fell asleep.


	4. New day

_Edit: Man, that layout was fucked up. Tried to fix it, now. Don't know when the next chapter will be coming up. Might take some time._

As Alyx woke, her eyes felt swollen and sticky. She rubbed them absently, trying to remember where she was. As she opened her eyes she recognized her old room at white forest base. How did she get here? And how long did she sleep? She rubbed her hands over her face and yawned, trying to puzzle together what had happened. "Well, I feel kind of under the weather... but not like I had too much to drink. So no hangover...", she thought, taking in more of her surroundings. As her gaze swept over the crate she used as a bedside-table, she noticed a cold cup of tea and a note with her name on it. Both seemed of little interest to her as she looked at the picture behind the cup. Her parents. Cradling her as a child. It was a duplicate of the picture, her father had in his lab.

Had had in his lab.

As she looked at the picture with her father, smiling, happy, it came back to her.  
Her father. Dying.  
Like a horrible movie the memory rattled before her eyes in a rapid motion.

 _The elevator, the advisor, her father pushing her back..._

Her breathing grew rapid as the pictures repeated in her mind again and again.

 _He pushed her back and the advisor lifted her and Gordon in the air. Her father attacked the monster and it grabbed him, lifting him. A second advisor came through the window just as the first leaped into her fathers flesh._

 _"I love you sweetheart. Don't look. Close you eyes."_

She cried, remembering these words as the echoed in her soul.  
And then they had killed him. A fountain of blood before they dropped him to the floor where he lay limp and lifeless. Her father, who had been there all her life, was now dead. Alyx stopped crying and stared ahead. Her hand felt around for the tea she saw beside her earlier, grabbing it, taking a sip. She sobered up. The memory was still repeating in her mind and she still felt the need to cry... But she remembered something else.

 _"Listen to me! Destroy that ship, whatever it takes!"_

It had been his dying wish. She had to make sure, it would be fulfilled.

Combing her hair she remembered other things about the night before. D.O.G coming through the roof to save her. Gordon taking care of her in mourning, guiding her back here. She felt like she should be all giddy about that part. That she'd been so close to him, that he'd taken care of her. She fixed her clothes and for less than a second felt like she was going to blush. He'd apparently also 'loosened' her clothes so she would sleep more comfortably. Fumbling around to close her bra, she didn't feel giddy. She just felt sad and angry. Sad that her father was dead, angry that she hadn't prevented it. Other emotions would have to wait until his last wish had been fulfilled. She stepped up, determined to go on this mission right now as she finally noticed the note by the picture. It was a folded paper with "Alyx" written on top.

 _"Alyx,_

 _hope you're gonna be okay._

 _If you need me, I'm in room G13.1.14, feel free to wake me._

 _\- Gordon_

 _PS: Barney is safe now."_

She exhaled quietly. Despite everything it was good to know Barney safe.  
She put on her coat, checked her gun and headed out.

 _Interlude_

There was darkness around him. He couldn't see, or touch or smell.. He wasn't sure he even had any sensors to feel anything at all.  
But he still had a brain. He was sure he still had a brain. If he hadn't had a brain, what would he be thinking with? No.. He definitely had a brain.  
He was sure of it.  
Somewhere. Maybe it was in storage. But did that mean, he was in storage too? Was he where his brain was or was he just accessing his brain from somewhere far away? He remembered falling. It was the most intense memory he had right now. Falling somewhere and then he woke up here.

 _Did I really wake up? Maybe I didn't wake. Maybe I'm asleep. Or I'm dead.  
What is that I that is speaking now anyway? Maybe it isn't even me. Maybe it's someone or something else that just believes it is me. No, that can't be. It would be insufficient because if it were, it would have been faulty, doubting it's identity, therefore I actually have to be myself.  
_

He was sure of it.

But what if this creature that thought it was him was designed to argue that it couldn't be a different creature because if it were it wouldn't argue with itself because that would be insufficient behavior and therefore he had to be himself because only humans were faulty. Only humans had doubt.  
And he was still a human.

He was sure if it.

 _/interlude_

As she jogged through the corridor she noticed people staring after her. Obviously they knew. Everyone knew.  
 _"Hey look, it's the girl who just lost her father"_ , she commented in high-pitched thought.  
She shuddered. Right now she felt disgusted with the people around her. Talking about her. Staring at her. Tracking her movements as if she was suddenly gonna do something crazy.  
 _"Well, maybe I am."_

But she could hardly blame them. Her father had been one, if not the major resistance leader. He had been there from the very start, building the first resistance cell a month after the 7-hour-war. Binding people together, giving them hope, the strength to go on despite all their losses.  
Leading them through the darkness.  
But he was dead now, and even though Alyx had lost her father and felt that the loss was greatest to herself, she also knew that she couldn't put herself above others. That she couldn't outright say that her pain was greater than anyone else's. That's what her brain said, anyway.  
Reaching Gordon's room she knocked hard, waited for a couple of seconds before entering.

As she opened the door she was dimly aware that under normal circumstances she would probably have lingered in front of the door for minutes before finally daring to go inside. As it turned out, he had not been awakened by her knock. He lay on the bed, all fours sprawled as far from one another as possible, a pained look on his face. As she came closer she noticed, among the countless wounds and bandages, that he was twitching in a weird way, breathing heavily. _"Doesn't look like he's having nice dreams..",_ she thought, before carefully laying her hand on one of his arms. "Gordon, wake up!", she said quietly, squeezing his arm. He didn't react but just kept twitching. "Gordon!", she called again, a little bit louder. He suddenly grabbed her arm hard, opening his eyes.  
She stopped breathing for a moment.  
He looked terrified.

It seemed to her that it took him a mere second to recognize her, for he let go of her arm soon and sat up, trying to control his breathing. A small part of her noticed that apart from the day they first met, this was the first time she ever saw him wear something else than his HEV-suit. He now wore a simple sweatshirt with a pair of lose tracking trousers. Also, he'd obviously showered and shaved for his beard looked a lot less grubby now than the day before. She watched as he ran his hands through his hair, shedding small blood crust out of it, before he rubbed his face for a moment, wincing as he touched the big laceration near his ear.  
"Gordon? Are you okay?", she asked hesitantly, adding "Sorry I woke you up, but I need to destroy the Borealis, and.. I need your help for that."  
He stared at her, blinking slowly. Then he nodded, grabbing his glasses. As he got up, she wondered where the wound at his ear came from. It looked like a small part of it was missing and she was sure that hadn't been the case when they launched the rocket.

"Are you doing better?", he asked quietly, a worried look on his face. She blinked in surprise. Besides gestures, some signing and the occasional cursing she'd never heard him talk. When she'd asked him about that before, he'd just shrugged and kept on shooting zombies, so she didn't ponder the topic more at the time. It didn't seem to matter much, now, though.  
"I'm...", she hesitated, suddenly feeling very emotional again. The stern anger that had kept her going seemed to burn away in a second, leaving her with nothing but sadness and an immeasurable feeling of loss. She swallowed. "I.. will be fine.", she said, careful not to let her voice crack that much. She actually believed what she said. It's what he had taught her.

 _"Keep going sweetheart. No matter how bad the pain, some day it will ease and you'll live to eat another pancake. Just keep going."_

He used to say that every time they had a setback against the combine, or someone died, even though they rarely ever got the ingredients to make something even slightly reassembling a pancake. He'd always made everything seem okay.  
Alyx realized she was crying again. Remembering his voice was too painful.  
Gordon stepped up to her as she tried wiping away her tears. "Dammit.", she muttered angry as the tears kept flowing. "I just can't.. I just can't control my freaking body. I need to stop crying, I... It won't bring him back to me, no matter how much I cry."  
He looked at her, concerned. "But it won't kill him any further if you do. It just happened yesterday. How can it not be okay to mourn right now?" She trembled insecure, desperate to get her posture back. "I... I know that! I just... It's important to focus right now. His last wish was to have the borealis destroyed! It's critical that we get moving as soon as possible. It was his last wish. The last...", she sobbed as the memory of his death hit her again and again, recalling every sensation, every last word, every aspect of her failure,-

Gordon put his arms around her and hugged her tightly.  
"It's okay.", he murmured, slowly stroking her back. "We'll make sure his wish is fulfilled."  
She let out a sigh of relief she hadn't known she was holding in. "okay.", she breathed quietly, holding onto him.

After he held her for a while she started to get herself together. Breathing steadily she let go of him slowy and blew her nose.  
Gordon caught himself staring at her. Even though she was so sad, she was really sweet at the same time. He coughed, embarrassed that he'd think of her like that at a time like this. She looked at him, an odd look on her face. "Say... this is the first time I've heard you talk... normaly. Why did you never speak before? I mean... besides cursing and stuff...", she asked, awkwardly.  
"Er..", he swallowed, looking way uncomfortably. "I, er... I can't really speak under stress. It's a.." his voice trailed off. Anxiety issues concerning things in his head or social interactions seemed incredibly stupid, talking to someone who grew up in a world of war. There was no way he could justify his own mental stupidity. Then again, what else could he tell ber but the truth? He cleared his throat, rubbing his neck. "It's a psychological condition. When I was younger, I coulnd't even speak in most. er... social settings. Now It's usually possible as long as... as there isn't someone or something nearby that's trying to kill me." Alyx blinked, then let out a short little laugh. "Gordon Freeman, Opener of the way and Nemesis to the Combine, afraid to talk in the face of a zombie." He smiled unamused, refraining the urge to roll his eyes.  
At least he'd made her smile.

An hour later they were standing in front of the hangar again. The supplies had been loaded into the chopper yesterday, it's gas tanks filled up. Everything was ready to go. They just need to go in that room. Were the chopper waited and Eli's blood was probably still all over the floor.  
Gordon gulped, rubbing Alyx back absently. If he felt horrible at the thought of going in there again he did not want to imagine what Alyx was going through. As they stood there, Barney appeared, dressed in his usual battle gear with the added bonus of a big backpack, huge dark tires under his eyes and a vortigaun by his side. "Uriah here wants to talk to you before we leave, Gordon.", he greeted. Uriah waved an arm, gesturing for him to follow, adding "Follow, freeman."

He lead him a couple of steps away, just out of hearing distance to the far end of the fence. He looked at him sternly. "The Freeman must visit kraken base before seeking the lost ship."  
Gordon raised his brows. "Must he? Why?"  
"The Freeman cannot be protected if he leaves the veb."  
He sighed. Even though he initially met the vortigaunts as enemies, he tried to be open minded about them. They had been slaves, controlled through the Nihinalith. He knew that. He tried his best to show appreciation for their help, to accept that they were weird. Without them, Alyx would be dead. He himself would probably be dead as well.

But their cryptic half-talk was horribly annoying.

"Look... If you explain to me properly why I should go to kraken base and I find it reasonable, I will do it. But if you answer a question with a half-answer that gives me two more questions, that doesn't help any of us."  
Uriah nodded. "Very well. After we bid you out of his hands, we knew it would be hard to help you stay here. He has been trying to get you back for some time now, almost succeeding at the citadel. We must not loose the opener of the way. You have saved us. If we lose you, we lose all. If you leave the veb, your vortessence cannot be kept, but if you pick up the watcher at kraken base, he will guard your vortessences.  
Gordon stared at him, baffled. His throat was dry as the desert. He had never heard anyone talk this clearly about his employer, not even Eli. Moreover, this meant, as long as a vortagaunt was nearby, his Employer couldn't extract him. He nodded slowly. This was hell of a reason to make the detour to kraken base. Remembering the map it wouldn't even bring them off course that much. A detail nagged at his conscience.  
"Why did you use plural, there? You said vortessences, not vortessence..."  
Uriah nodded somewhat gravely. "If we lose you, we lose the Alyx Vance. Your life force is woven. You now know, why you need to go. Farewell, Freeman. I will return to my place of honor at the side of the Magnusson.", he said, before sprinting back to the silo.  
Gordon stood there for a moment, dumbfounded. If he was taken, Alyx would.. what? Be taken as well? Die? And what if she died, what would happen to him?  
He shuddered, thinking about the implications.

"Hey Gordon! How long are you gonna stand there? We kinda need to get going over here!", Barney called, snapping Gordon out of his thoughts. He trotted over to them, scratching his neck.  
"Yeah... about that..."


	5. Escape

_Quick note: I changed some known facts because it was more covenient to the story line. Have fun._

"So, let me get this right.. ", Barney repeated; "instead of flying directly to the ship that we want to destroy, you want us to take a detour..."

"Yes.", Gordon said, patiently.

"To Kraken base."

"Yes."

"Which will cost us at least two hours."

"I guess."

"And has most likely been overrun by the Combine."

"yes."

"To pick up one of the creepiest Vortigaunts known to the resistance."

"yup."

"And then fly over to the Borealis to do our thing."

"Pretty much, yeah.", Gordon nodded encouragingly.

"Oh boy...", Barney sighed and rubbed his face thoughtfully. "Will you tell me why?"

Gordon stared at the ceiling for a moment before shaking his head, slightly. "Not now, that is."

"But it has to do with what Uriah told you, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

"So, we're gonna need him to destroy the Borealis."

Gordon blinked. He hadn't thought of that possibility. Actually, he hadn't even thought of the possibility that the Vortigaunts might just outright be lying to him. _"Well, if they are I have no way to know it.. and I don't have a choice in trusting them anyway. We need them. There's no way around that. And they did save Alyx."_

"Uhm... Maybe. I don't know. I'm pretty sure he isn't going to stop us from destroying it. I hope."

The next hour of flight passed more or less quietly. Alyx and Barney mostly focused on piloting the chopper, at times discussing a possible change of route. Their occupation left Gordon, in the back of the chopper, pretty much alone with his thoughts.

Life was surreal. A month ago, his biggest fear had been to ever be asked to speak in front of the gathered Black mesa employees again – now it was suddenly twenty years later, everyone he knew was either much older or dead now and the world was controlled by.. by what exactly? Gordon frowned as he realized that he was aware that the resistance had scored a huge victory against the combine, had however no idea what exactly that meant or how the world was changed through this. Were there more citadels on earth? People had mentioned that major communications between the combine forces had been disrupted through the distruction of the citadel, but what did that mean? What was the status of the world anyhow? Were there still mundane things as schools, shops, agriculture or any sort of culture that wasn't strictly combine or resistance? Had the world gone black and white? While he was at it, why had everyone whom he'd met since he had been thrown into this strange time period acted as if he was some kind of almighty savior? The Freeman this, the freeman that, we're gonna make it now, freeman's here..

So many people had died because they believed in him. Where did that come from?

He'd wanted to ask Barney many of these questions already the night before, but.. after hearing what had happened to himself as a person, The state of the world seemed less important, somehow.

They would still need at least three more hours till they made it to Kraken base. Maybe now was the time.

He cleared his throat. "I wonder... could you two tell me.. what exactly I missed? These past twenty years, I mean."

Barney frowned. Alyx turned her head to Gordon, raising a questioning eyebrow. "What do you mean? In this part of the planet, or,-"

"No, I mean.. What happened in general after the incident at Black Mesa." He swallowed, remembering that while he had told Barney, Alyx still had no idea that he hadn't been around in these times. "I, er.. wasn't really conscious between that day and my arrival in city 17." As he struggled with the desire to tell them the truth – as far as he knew it – he felt a cold chill around him and he knew he was watching. His employer. Like a cold pair of fingers, resting on his shoulder, in this moment, he felt extremely aware of this mysterious man eyes, resting on him. He gulped while Alyx looked at him in disbelief. "You.. What do you mean, you haven't been conscious?"

"I mean I lost consciousness on Xen after defeating the Ninihalath and came to my senses in city 17 with everyone older, earth under combine control and somehow everyone believing that I was some kind of.. savior of humanity or whatever.", he sighed. "Look, I know this sounds bat-shit-crazy... But I can't give you a different explanation now. I don't have one. But I do need to know what is going on and why things are what they are."

Alyx looked at him and still couldn't quite believe it. In some ways, it explained a lot – that he hadn't been around, that he looked like 27 even though they said, he'd been that age at the time of the resonance cascade, why he had looked so confused when first coming through city 17...

But in her eyes, it also made his deeds all the more incredible. If this was true, he'd been thrown far into the future, not knowing what was going on but still playing a mayor role in leading the resistance to a mayor victory. She couldn't help feeling more and more impressed.

It was still really odd though.

She sighed. "Barney, how about I take over again and you fill him in on the first few years? I don't think I know as many details on those as you."

They switched control of the chopper before Barney rubbed his head, thinking of a way to start.

"Well... for starters, escaping Black Mesa wasn't easy..."

 _May 16th, 2004, 5.58 pm_

"Don't worry Mr Calhoun, I've programmed it to recharge immediately after I've went through. You just have to throw the switch again like you did before!", the scientist shouted before entering th portal.

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry... easy for you to say, you're already out...", Barney muttered to himself, clinging to his magnum. He felt sick and tired and horrified and everything in him screamed to get out.  
But he couldn't. He had to wait while the portal charged painfully slow. Two bars done, three more to go. He heard the shrill sound of a blowpipe and felt even sicker. Damn those HECU assholes. He climbed the ladder as fast as he could, deploying and explosive at the door that was being torn open. Just as the inside fell through the frame he detonated the bomb. It brought down most of the soldiers with only one remaining upright. Barney shot him, waited a mere second if there were any more left before sliding down the ladder again. "Yes! Yes!", he exclaimed relieved as the portal was finally ready to go.,He pushed the button, went back up, running towards the stairs that would lead him to the portal, finally leaving this nightmare.

He jumped into the portal. Green lights surrounding him as he was teleported outside. Finally. Air.

For a moment he just breathed, trying to ignore the lights still flickering around him.

"Ah, there he is! Calhoun! You've arrived! When you didn't come through right away, we thought that the,-", the Scientist said, before noticing the green light, still emitted from the security guards body. " oh no. There's something wrong here. Simmons! Come look at Calhoun! His body seems to be in some sort of resonance displacement!"  
Barney felt the weird buzzing again that he always felt when being teleported. The green light got brighter and suddenly he was on Xen again! "No... No!", he screamed, looking around himself. He was on a small fragment of the planet with a yellow crystal. He couldn't be here again. He had to get away from here! Just as the panicking stared to take control, the green light returned and he was teleported yet again. He felt like throwing up.

The room he had been transported to was small and he heard one of the military voices through a walkie talkie outside. "..got a hold of this freeman guy..." Barney gulped. He walked up to the grid, peering outside. Two soldiers were dragging a man in a bright orange HEV-suit.  
"Gordon!" Barney rattled the grid but it was firmly in place, unmovable. As the lights grew brighter and brighter, he heard the radio conversation continue;  
"..time for questioning.."  
"What the hell for? We got him! Let's kill him now!"  
"And if they find the body?"  
"body? What body?" They laughed.

Barney held on to the grid unsteadily. He felt his legs giving out on him. It was all too much. All this blood, all the killing, the violence, hunted at all sides... These soldiers were going to kill one of his best friends and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. As he was teleported again he just wanted it to end. He just wanted to fall asleep or die or whatever. No thinking anymore. No killing. No walking. Just an end.

"Oh thank god, you made it! I was worried that a malfunction occurred at the last moment and you might have been caught in an infinite harmonic reflux. If that's the case you're lucky to be standing here. Then again, we're all lucky. Thanks to you, however, we were actually able to pull off this half-brained idea. We made it Mr Calhoun. We made it!  
Barney stared at the man, unable to fully comprehend what he had said. He saw them open the gate, waving at him to get into the Van. He lost consciousness just as he collapsed into his seat.

 _Black Mesa, Lambda Complex  
_

Eli stared into the Portal, unsure what to hope for. After the resonance cascade had flooded the facility with Aliens, they had first hoped to end the damn thing with a satellite. Calculating and code writing faster then any of them ever had before they had launched it with Gordons help – despite the Aliens and soldiers raining all sorts of hell down onto them. But it had been useless. As their data showed, the portal couldn't be closed because someone else was keeping it open. When he had realized what had to be done, Eli hadn't wanted to be the person to tell anyone else to take care of it. How could you ask anyone for this? Whoever went to the other side to stop this nightmare, would remain trapped on the other side. On Xen. That horrible planet were so many of his fellow scientists had died already.

And as Gordon came storming in, he knew he was about to lose another colleague.

Again.

He stared into the portal. The young scientist had only been gone a few minutes, but it felt like ages.

"Why didn't I abort the test?", Eli asked himself, rubbing his forehead. If Gordon succeeded, they might survive this day... So many people had died already, all because he hadn't trusted his instincts. Science was always about facts and experiments, there was no room there for such a thing as gut feeling. And even if it where.. Dr Breen's instructions had been clear. He was to follow all orders from the mysterious man in his blue suit. He was to set the energy level to 105 percent, even though he knew damn well that anything above 90% was extremely dangerous. But the others had voted against his concerns and they had continued their work. He could still have stopped it though.

He could have. And he didn't.

All because of Breen. Had he known what was going to happen? Eli never liked their administrator much, but what could anyone hope to gain by creating a resonance cascade? He sighed, turning away from the portal.

After Gordon had left the laboratory earlier today in order to get help from the surface, he and Dr Kleiner had debated for some time what would be the wisest thing to do. He had been terribly worried about his wife and daughter who would still have been at the dormitories at the time, but there was no guarantee he would reach them if he tried to escape. According to the security cameras they could access from their area, many corridors were filled with aliens already, wreaking havoc on the facility and killing whoever they met. "Azian, Alyx.. Please be safe. By God, be safe."  
"I think we should try to get through the Ventilation shafts.", his colleague had said. Eli had turned around, looking at Dr Kleiner in disbelief. "The ventilation shafts? If we get caught by an alien their we'll not only have no way to defend ourselves but there will also be no way to run. We'd be an easy target."  
"See, I've thought of that and I came to the conclusion that this assumption is wrong."  
He blinked. "How do you mean?"  
"Well, the portal storms can do a lot of harm to any environment, no matter if they are in an open area or underground or some such. But, as long as there isn't enough free room, no actual portal can be spawned. By this theory, the ventilation shafts are actually one of the last remaining more or less safe spaces around."  
Eli thought about it for a moment. "Well, assuming that you're right, were would we go? Using the shafts to get to the surface isn't really an option, it would take us days to do that."  
"Yes, but we might be able to reach get to the lambda complex if we take a shortcut through sector C#18. I know that won't help us directly, but... If we don't find a way to stop the resonance cascade, there will just be more and more aliens coming through. The upper laboratories till seem to be intact, we'd have a place where we might actually accomplish something."  
Vance looked at the man with new-found respect. He didn't know the man well, even though they had worked together for quite some time now, but the calmness the scientist showed in the face of danger and his strong will to do something about this said a lot about him as a person. He sighed.  
It was probably the best they could do.  
 _"Oh Azian... please... please be safe..."_

"So... what now?  
"What?" Eli had been lost in his thought.  
"I'm saying, we need to get out of here. We cannot to anything else, not for Gordon or humanity. At least not right now, I say we get out of here.", Kleiner said.  
Eli looked at him, trying to comprehend what he'd said. "Yes..", he agreed slowly. We need.. to get out, I guess... Do you have any idea how I could best get to the dormitories from this area?"  
Kleiner looked at him bewildered. "If you were to use the ventilation shafts again, you'd have to move further down again before going up... If you were to use the normal ways, you'd have to move through Sector G... but...", he slowly shook his head. "I.. I'm sorry. I hadn't considered... Dr Vance, the dormitories are already..", his voice trailed of. He couldn't say it. He had checked on security cameras as often as he could and the dormitories had apparently been overrun by aliens already. The cameras had showed corpses everywhere.  
"What? What are you saying?", Eli was exasperated. He had done his best to keep himself together in the last few hours, worry and guilt eating him up on the inside.  
Isaac kept moving his head from side to side. "Vance, it... it's most likely to late. The security cameras showed that the dormitories have been overrun by Aliens.. presumably it's already.. too late." He swallowed, over strained with the situation. He wasn't a family person, but... his colleague had been clamping to the photograph he had taken from his desk. A picture, Kleiner knew, that showed himself with his wife and his adorable daughter.  
Eli had looked at him in horror before running over to the controls and checking the security footage himself. "No... No!", he cried quietly as he went though the cams. He buried his face in his hands. How could he go on? What should he go on for?  
They heard explosions somewhere nearby. The other three scientists started moving towards the ventilation shafts, checking if they could still use them to go on. "We should go now, Vance!", Magnusson said harsher than anyone else would have dared. "I get that you're mourning aand all that, but we gotta get moving!"  
Eli turned around in anger. "I'm not mourning yet! I don't know if their dead yet! They could have survived! Maybe they are hiding!" He grabbed the shotgun they had liberated from a dead soldier earlier, sprinting to the ladder. "I need to ckeck it myself! I can't leave like this! Good luck to you!", he shouted, sliding down the ladder before anyone could stop him.  
"Eli!", kleiner shouted after him, taking a few steps towards the ladder, before his brain had spread the message in his body that it was no use. He sighed. Another life lost. "Alright.", he said hoarsely. "Let's go."

Eli ran through the corridor, through sticky blood and half-melted bones. A part of him wondered if all of this had been done by Gordon and if so.. how? He'd always seemed so calm. Yet, as evidence suggested, he'd pretty much gone on a rampage, slaughtering aliens and soldiers alike. He rounded a corner and was suddenly confronted with on of the tall aliens. His breath stopped. He raised the shotgun and aimed, but the alien beat him to it, firing a beam of light,-  
It froze in place. Suddenly, the air seemed much colder. The alien was frozen in place, a beam of light suspended in mid air, mere inches from Eli's face. _"What the..?"_ , Elis would have said if he could speak, but he couldn't. _"What is happening to me?"_ , he thought, trying to look around, but, again, he couldn't.

 _"Missster Vaaaance..."_ , a ghostly voice called. The alien, his lighting beam and everything else around the scientist seemed to move into the background while a blue-suited man came towards him from.. somewhere. _"You! You bastard!_ ", Eli thought as hard as he could, for he still couldn't talk but going by the mysterious man's ability's it wouldn't surprise the scientist if he could read his thoughts.

 _"I'm afr-aid, I cannot.. allow for you to.. die, sso ssooooon."_ The environment completely faded from Vance's view now and it seemed like there were sparks of light coming from.. somewhere. He could vaguely see the train he used in the morning to get to work, then some kind of wasteland with crystals scattered around.. as he stared into the distance, he thought he could see a orange figure somewhere far in the back, shooting at someone or something..  
 _"At first, I, thought... you would.. find it in yourssself to... leaaave with the othersss... but you don't.. seem to comprehend... that you've already lost."  
_ The room moved again and they were in the dormitories. A big splatter of blood was on the wall beside the mysterious man as he slowly touched the nameplate beside the door. _"You will find, that, I, am not a.. cruel man.."_ The door opened, and though Eli couldn't move he still felt himself move inside the room as if someone had screwed tiny wheels on his shoes. He wanted to shout something, scream, but he couldn't.

His wife lay there on the floor, her torso a bloody mess, the insides lying open. Someone had ripped some of her organs out too.  
How could this monster say he wasn't cruel? To show him this, to show him how he, her husband, hadn't done anything to save the woman he loved so much?  
 _"Azian... Oh Azian.."_

 _"Now.. you, may, be wondering..."_ Te environment changed again. They were outside now. The sun had started setting already, but yet, bright sunlight emitted towards them. Cruel, beautiful sunlight.  
 _"...why, I... showed you. You are.. a sssentimental being. Keeping you...out was... important to my.. employerss. To ssstop you, from... doing, sssomethign.. stupid, I... took sssome liberties."  
_ More details appeared in the background. The outer gate, a van, the facilitys in the back... The man lay a hand on the car, seemingly looking inside for a moment. _"Do not try... to abuse my... gernerosssity..._ "  
The man vanished as quickly as he had appeared. Eli stared into the bright sky for a moment before falling to his knees, weeping. His family was dead. Why had he survived? Why had be been taken out, rescued in such a cruel way? He wrapped his arms around himself, rocking back and forth, not caring how many tears he shed. He didn't know how long it took him to get the nerve to get up again, a dim part of him remembering the weird remarks this man had made. He moved towards the car as he saw something that made his heart jump in hope. A small figure, lying in the back of the van. He ran towards it and it really was Alyx. His baby girl. His sweet, sweet daughter.  
Carefully he felt around for her pulse and found a strong and steady heartbeat. He picked her up and sat down with her, cradling her slowly as he wept again. His wife was dead. But his daughter was alive. Alive!


	6. Survivors

_Hey guys, this chapter focuses on Barney and Eli and what happend to them right after they escaped(yeah, not much action here, there'll be a lot of it in the next chapter though) - The next one will deal with the 7-hour war and afterwards we'll return to the present. Thank you for you're comments, I appreciate it._

 _Have fun._

Eli sat on the couch and yawned. It made him feel the tension in his back and neck. He moved his head slightly from one side to the other before staring ahead again. He did not know how long it had been since he'd moved. He looked down onto his daughter. She was still asleep. After he had found her the day before she had kept on sleeping and had yet to wake. Dr Kleiner and his group had made it out of the facility shortly after and they'd driven off together, reaching Dr Magnussons second home after a couple of hours. For the time being he had allowed them to stay, till it was clear if they were wanted by the military or could move around freely.

Eli also suspected that the man was afraid. He had been brusque and fairly grumpy during the debacle at black mesa and afterward, but Eli felt that the man was also deeply afraid. He'd always had a way with people. Reading most of their emotions off them, no matter how much they tried to disguise them. Alyx stirred in his arms and he carefully stroked her head. He hadn't moved since they'd arrived here. The other had tried to convince him to lie down for some time, to rest. But he'd refused to put Alyx down, sat on the couch, propped some cushions up behind his head and had stayed there. At some point he had dozed off for some time, only to wake up from horrible flashbacks, the fresh corpses of his colleagues and the body of his beautiful wife carved into his memory with photographic clarity. He sighed. Kleiner, Magnusson and Bridges had gone to be hours ago. He actually could see the dawn of a new day already and the light of the portal storms in the distance. How would the world change through this? The resonance cascade had ended, but the portal storms still raged across the planet. What consequences would form due to all the Xen-creatures that came through?

"Dad-dyy?", a small voice cried and his eyes hurried down again. Alyx rubbed her beautiful eyes and looked at him tiredly.

"I'm here, sweetheart.", he answered quietly, barely keeping himself from crying in relief. A part of him had been afraid that she'd just keep on sleeping, possibly falling into a coma or worse.

"Daddy, I had a bad dream! Momma was hurt! Where's Momma?", she whined, small tears running over her face. "Oh sweetheart.. oh Lord... I... I'm so sorry honey. It... wasn't a dream...You're mom isn't... She didn't..", he swallowed. "Daddy.. you're crying.. you're scaring me. Where's mommy?!", she cried desperate and he hugged her hard, rocking her back and forth. She cried some more, asking where her mother was. What me meant with it not being a dream. He swallowed again. He had to say it. He had to...

"She's dead honey. Your mom didn't make it.", he said in an alien voice, frightend of his own calmness. Somehow, saying it made it feel a lot more real and he felt the weight of the events even harder. She started crying more, struggling with the information. He held her and cried.

There was nothing else he could do.

Barney awoke in a dry room. His eyelids were heavy and itching and his whole body felt as if he'd slept while hanging from the ceiling, head down. Everything hurt. As he yawned, he felt the skin around his mouth crack. "crap", he thought, trying to open his eyes. They were still really itchy but he knew that in most cases, rubbing just made it worse so he kept his hands off them. After a few moments blinking, a small room came into focus. It had wooden floors, a little table with a couple of old chairs stacked against it and a beat up piano. As he looked down he realized that he'd been lying on a mattress on the floor, with a bottle beside him. He grabbed it. A clear liquid bubbled inviting and as he opened hit he just hoped that it was water. For a second or so. Then he gobbled it down, delicious wet, moisturizing his dry throat. When he was done, he breathed. It felt glorious. He lay down again, just breathing, appreciating the fact that he was alive in this very moment before the memories hit him like a sledgehammer and he immediately sat up straight again. "What...", he murmured breathless, trying to sort the images that flooded his mind. The aliens, the portals, the dead scientists, all that blood... Barney shuddered. He was a security guard, yes, he had already seen his fair share of violence, blood, death.. but this had been different. Not knowing who was friend or fiend, confronted with aliens, his colleagues dying left and right.. Barney put his face in his hands for a moment, breathing steadily. "alright.", he muttered, getting up. His body protested. His head started pounding, his vision went away and he felt dizzyness setting in but he kept his balance, waiting, breathing. After a minute or two, his vision got better again. He stretched his arms, looking for his shoes. He was still wearing the clothes he had on when he'd went through black mesa, but someone had removed his west to make it easier to sleep. He found it on one of the chairs, next to his shoes. "I wonder where I am.", he murmured to himself, putting his jacket on. He remembered seeing Gordon getting carried way before teleporting again. The scientists had been relived to see him and had prepared a car. They had to be the ones responsible for bringing him here. He glanced around, again, taking in more details. There was a window behind him, an old, fairly dusty bedspread covering it to block some of the sun. The room was bathed in a pleasant, orange light which made the world seem way more peaceful then it actually was. He decided against pulling the cover aside. It seemed Reeeeally dusty, and he felt dried out enough as it was. Barney went to the door, resisting the urge to draw his gun. If someone wanted to kill him (again!), and was around, he would already be dead.

Exiting, he found himself in a narrow floor. There was one door beside the room he had been in and apparently another one at each end of the corridor. He went to the one with more light and came upon stairs, going down to the left. He could hear people talking downstairs and the quiet humming of an old tv. Adverse the stairs was a big, blurred window that reminded Barney of a church, for it was made of many small panels with a few colored in between. "Where the heck am I?", he wondered, before noticing that the door beside the stairs was actually open. Pushing it slowly, he realized it was a bathroom which caused other parts of his anatomy to pipe up with demands for attention.

As he washed his face, checking on the cuts and bruises, he contemplated, it could be worse. Yes, many of his colleagues were dead. Yes, he'd lost friends, his job and was probably a hunted man.

Yes. He would never forgive himself for the people he had failed.

But he was still alive.

Among very few other things, Barney calhoun believed in the sacredness of life and in the obligation to live one's life to the fullest. He felt a gnawing pain about the losses of the previous day, and he'd continue to do so for a long time, but he himself was alive. Time to make something off it. He left the bathroom and stumbled down the stairs, heading for the sound of people. He had to know what was going on. How long had he slept? Where was he anyways? Where was the next phone so he could check onto his family? He opened the door and entered a living room. Five people sat around a small table with coffee and pie, staring at the tv.

"...seem to be appearing in any corner of the planet. While at first being quite hostile, many of the creatures seem rather confused now. The US military has given any citizen the advise to shoot them on sight for they are very dangerous and can shoot some sort of laser from their hands. In other news; It is now confirmed that the Facility known as Black mesa has been nuked by the US military. We turn to senior armageddon correspondent Jacob Foreman."

"Thanks Janet. According to Colonel Smiffels of the Hazardous Enviornment Combat Unit, yesterday at 08.58 AM an experiment at Black Mesa went terribly wrong, causing a so-called 'resonance cascade' which in turn opened uncontrolled portals between different dimensions and our dimension. According to HECU, they send in troops right away as they realiszed what was happening bur only found dead people inside. The scientists had failed to use the neccesary precautions in their experiments which cost all of them their lives. Since the Military felt that there was no other way to stop the portals then to destroy their source, they've detonated a small nuclear bomb inside the complex to make sure that all aliens were killed which also killed every possible remaining human in the facility. Even though Black Mesa has been destroyed, the portals remain on earth and there are creatures still coming through."

"They NUKED it?", Barney exclaimed, turning everyones attention on himself very suddenly. Dr Bennets Eyebrows shot up. "Barney! You're awake!", he zapped the tv off and got up. "Please, sit down, have some tea.", he gestured to a seat beside him. "This is my sister Veronica and here wife, Jasmin.", he gestured to the two woman who sat opposite. Barney shook their hands, still confused. "Nice to me you...", he said, automatically. "But still... They really nuked the facility? And were exactly are we? And do you have a phone I could use?"

"Come oooon.. pickup...pickuppickuppickup...", he murmured, waiting for the phone to stop beeping. It was the third time he'd dialed this number and if she didn't pick up now he'd have to try something else. He tapped his fingers nervously as the sound finally changed. "Hello?", a small voice asked, and he sighed in relief. "Lauren, it's me." He heard a short sob. "Barney?! You're alive?", the women gasped in disbelief. "Yeah, it's me. I got out just in time and,-" he stopped as he heard her crying. "Lauren, are you okay? I'm sorry I didn't call earlier but there was just no way..", she breathed slowly, whimpering as quietly as she could. "Yes. Yes, sure it's okay baby, I just... thank god you're alright. When I saw the news, I tried to call you, and you didn't pick up I thought... I thought I'd lost you." She whimpered a bit more before a thought seemed to cross her mind. "What about the radiation? They dropped a bomb on your facility, didn't they? How far were you away?" Barney thought about it for a moment. He was okay, was he not? He was pretty sure of it.. "Well... I don't think I was exposed to the radiation. Well. Not more than usual, I mean. " His girlfriend let out a short laugh that came out in a weird way. "Where are you? Are you safe? There are these things everywhere...", her voice was frail. She sounded as if she was about to tear up again every second. "I... I don't really know yet. When I came to myself and heard that te facility had blown up my first thought was to call you. Well... You or my mom, anyway."

She let out a snorty laugh. "Yeah, right.."

"Lauren look, I... I don't know when I can be back yet. I will try to find a way but.. The government might consider me a fugitive. I'm not even sure if this phone is secure, though they said it is, but.. in anyway, if anyone asks if you've heard of my whereabouts, you mustn't tell them that I'm alive. When things went wrong there was a military division send in, killing everything and everyone they found. I saw them murder several scientists, just because they were in the facility. I think they're trying to silence everyone who might say that the government had something to do with this.. problem, So.. I have to stay under the radar for a bit." He heard her take a deep breath, swallowing more tears. "Okay.. That.. seems reasonable." She tried to control her breathing. "Look, I... I don't think you could come here right now, anyways. There are these.. creatures appearing everywhere. People have been turned into monsters.. there's miltary everywhere, they're marching through the streets, shooting at everything that looks even remotely weird..." She started crying again. "They shot Mr Jefferson from across the street, just because he has that face deformation! Said they thoguht he was possessed or something! I don't even.. I just don't know what to do. They don't say what happened, they just say, it's portal storms or something and some kind of science gibberish and then they nuked black mesa and thought, that was that, but there's these things still out there.. some of them just look confused. I saw one that stared into the sky and I think it cried..."

Barney tried to steady his breathing. All he wanted right now was to run to her. Ge to her, protect her from these monsters and the troops and then find a quiet place for peace, quiet, sleep... He sighed. He had to be rational. Even though he didn't exactly knew where he was, it was clear that he was still a long way away from her. She was in her home all the way back in California, while he was still at least one state away – if not two or three by now. There was simply now way for him to get to her. Not without getting himself killed – and she would not forgive him if he just died in that endeavor. They talked for a little longer, assuring one another that everything would be fine, knowing fully well that it wouldn't be. But there was nothing either of them could do.

They had to wait and hope.


	7. Before the storm

_Hey Guys, sorry it's been so long. First of all, I'm afraid the present won't be back in the next chapter quite yet. I couldn't find the time to work on the story in the past few weeks because I have exams in two weeks and kinda have to work on that. Since I realised that I won't have time to work properly on this story again for at least another month I decided to give you what I've got so far so yeah, the is still not done, but it will be. It will be._

 _Anyhow. I appreciate all comments and thank you for you're continuing support. Constructive critisism is always welcome._

 _So... new chapter! Have fun!_

May 19th, 11pm. Santa Fe, New Mexico

Wallace Breen looked out his panorama window and watched as another alien appeared in his front yard, only to be shot by one of the guards seconds later. He sighed. How could he turn this mess into a profit? He sipped some coffee and sat down at his desk. It had been eighty-six hours since the resonance cascade, and he still wasn't sure how to work the situation out to his benefit. Sure, when he had handled the sample down to his scientists with the explicit orders to run the test at 105%, he had known that it could cause a resonance cascade. It had been a very real possibility. But.. it had been too good of an opportunity to pass off. He had been losing personal for months now. Months! Science team after science team had died without bringing him the samples he needed! Oh sure, the returning team members had whined and complained about their dying colleagues, but science had it's price dammit! And if the price were human lifes for technical advancement he'd gladly pay it, but no sample had been nearly as pure as he had needed it, while rumours had it that aperture science was just weeks away from a breakthrough in teleportation technology! He had had a breakthrough! But he couldn't use it commercially because there was no use for a service that send tourists to a freaking deathtrap of a planet were the beautiful crystal and oh-so-interesting aliens could kill them with one touch!

And now this. Two weeks ago, as he'd been in his office, once again pondering how to get a better a sample, a man had entered. He hadn't come through the door, neither had he been announced by his secretary. One moment Breen had been alone in his office, the next there was a tall man in a blue suit, standing in front of his desk. "Who let you in? Who are you?", Breen barked, reaching for the alarm button under his desk. It wouldn't move. He froze, trying to press it again, but it wouldn't budge. He looked at the intruder in horror who hadn't moved or said anything so far.

The tall man had very cold, almost blazingly blue-green eyes and an evil smile crossed his face as the administrator finally looked at him.

 _"Mr.. Breen."_ , he said, his voice creaking and weird.

"Dr.. Breen...", Wallace said unsure, but there was the smile again. _"I.. don't think sssso. Right now. Mr Breeeeen. I have a.. proposssition for you.."_ He opened his briefcase and got out a small cube of glass with a tiny shard in it. _"Have, your, sssscientisssts test the purety of thissss sssample. I will be.. back."_ He vanished. He didn't just leave the room through the door or at least faded into nothingness or anything at all – he just vanished.

Breen stared at the spot where the mans eyes had just been, breathing rapidly. He'd never met anyone like this. After a few seconds his doors flew open and two security guards ran inside, guns in hand. They looked around confused and only now Breen realised that his hand was still on the alarm button. He'd been pressing it again and again ever since the man left. He sighed. "Sorry Gentleman, false alarm." They nodded, though one of them looked skeptic. "Are you sure everything's alright sir?" "Yes, yes", he waved them away. "Everything's... fine, thank you.", he said, staring at the crystal sample.

Two days later he knew he needed a better sample. Three days after that he'd paid more than double for a little container than what he'd paid for his upper class mansion. He had his scientists prepare the tests for about a week before they could ultimately proceed. Finally! Finally they would gather the data they needed! Breen had watched through security cameras and listened in through microphones as the test started. He'd rubbed his hands in anticipation as he heard the reactors been turned on, watched as the scientist pushed the crystal into the anti-mass spectrometer. As his colleagues had started screaming that they had to abort the test he'd went blind with rage for a moment – before he realized what had happened. A resonance cascade. The largest in human hystory, that much was obvious mere secondes after it occurred. All readings were off the charts, not to mention the astounding effects on the facility. He felt the ground shake and turmoil outside. And as soon as the first vortigaunts started appearing outside the lamda complex he pressed his personal alarm button angrily. Damn it. Damn this stupid crystal! It had cost so much and now it hadn't even given them the results they needed! His securety guards came in and he motioned them towards his personal eleveyter. They rode up towards the roof as he took out his phone and called the HECU control center. "This is Dr. Wallace Breen, I need to speak to colonel Henderson. Contact code Victor-1-1-1-4-1-November-0-Uniform-5 slash 4-5-5-hotel-0-1-3." He waited for a moment before he got put through. "Colonel, pleased to hear you. Things have gone bad. We've got a resonance cascade and aliens are coming through. I don't think my scientists can fix it and I don't think they'll keep quiet about project TIEIIA. I recommend termination." He waited for a moment while the Colonel replied. "Yes Colonel, of course I will... thank you colonel." he ended the call and put his phone back in his pocket. One of the securety guards looked at him concerned but quickly avoided his gaze as the adminstrator swept his eyes towards him.

And that had been that. He went home and ordered some take out. Listened in on the military radio frquency. Got annoyed that they didn't succeed in klling freeman directly. Got drunk on red wine and went to bed. At that point the portal storms hadn't bothered him much. They had had a very small portal storm in the facility before and they had faded after a few days. The scientists had been happy about the long weekend. It wouldn't be much of a problem. Surely not.

But now it was going on for more than three days and he was unsure how to continue his work right now. Black Mesa had been successfully nuked and as far as they knew, he was the only survivor of this incident that was already called 'black mesa incident' by the public. He sighed. Fifty years of company history, nuked and taited in the public eye. What should he do now? He could open a firm on his own, but it would take years to take off and he would have to lower his standard of living. He shuddered. It wasn't an option. Originally he'd been appointed administrator of black mesa by the president himself as the company had had a couple of departments that wer tecnically government property and as such also run and paid for by the government. They would prbably quetsion him.

An unsetteling thought crossed his mind. What if they decided that he knew to much? He was the last survivor of this incident, the last witness to the Xen experiments and their effort to colonize the borderworld... Maybe they decided that the whole project was a failure that was best buried with each member.

Cold swept ran down his back. He jumped as his phone rang.

May 20th, 01.30 am. 5 Miles outside Cedar city, Utah

Barney stared at the ceiling. How long had he been lying here? An hour? Two? Three? He didn't know. It had been a really annoying day. After he had talked to Lauren he'd mostly been depressed. He wanted to see her, hold her, make sure she was alright.. But he couldn't leave. Not for a few days at least. As long as the portal storms were around traffic was a nightmare anyway, not to mention that he really shouldn't come into contact with any officers or g-men right now. So he had sat there with the others, greatful for their hospitality while at the same time bewildered how many knickknack ornaments a couple under the age of fifty could actually own.

The news had been gruesome. Apparently a variety of aliens kept on spawning in small groups all over the planet. Every country out there had troups ind the streets now, every policemen and securety guard did their best to ensure the safety of the human population. And Barney calhoun had sat on a couch, drinking horrible sweet tea. There had been more accidents like the one lauren had told him about. A bunch of teenagers who were cosplaying some kind of alien had been shot, as well as a few more disabled people and two little kids witht teletubby masks on.

Barney got up and put his clothes back on. It was no use trying to sleep. Since the portal storms continued and they were a few miles outside of the city there was no police force around this place, which meant that they had to look out for themselves. There hadn't been too many ttacks since they had gotten here but barney was happy either way that one of his hosts was a ranger and had plenty of weapons and ammunition around. He did not want to face these creatures without a weapon.

"Mike.", he greeted quietly as he came back in the living room. Dr Simmons and Dr Rosenberg had taken the first shift to stay awake tonight and looked at him in surprise. "Barney! I thought you wanted to get a little bit more shut-eye? Your shift doesn't start until three..."

"Yeah but I can't really sleep so I figured I could do something useful if I'm awake anyway. If you want you can just go to sleep, I'm not gonna be all that sleepy anytime soon."

Simmons nodded grateful and handed him the shotgun. "Alright, I'm pretty damn tired to be honest. "Good night, doc."

The man left and Barney sat down, door and tv being in good view from his angle. He traded a glance with rosenberg. "Have you checked on the news recently?"

The man shook his head. "I don't know if I want to... I mean.. we can't leave, we can't do anything, we just.. have to wait. It's depressing to watch the news."

Barney nodded. "But we aren't completely cut off from the world if we check in every once in a while. Do you mind if I have a look?"

He shrugged. "Knock yourself out."

May 20th, 1.50 am, Leawood, Kansas.

Eli stared at his colleagues. They were sitting in the living room once again. The day had been.. an exhausting one. Between juggling his own feelings and taking care of Alyx, there had also been aliens appearing in the street. Along the aliens, soldiers had been appearing too, painting the sidewalks with green goo as they killed the wreched creatures.

They hadn't dared to open the blinds after that.

The security cameras showed a lot of soldiers marching through the city. It was very well possible that they had standing orders regarding surviving black Mesa personal – that was, if the government had any clue if there were any survivors at all. Dr Magnusson had grudgingly given him a couple of old childrens movies on tape that were left from when his nephew used to visit him. So they'd settled in the living room, watching 'Flubber' with Dr Kleiner. This was followed by the ignoring of the next shooting outside, the watching of 'Hook' with the grumpy Dr Magnusson and the eating of pancakes. As Eli put in an old video of Labyrinth and Alyx was lost for a few minutes in the monologue of the goblin king, he went up to the securety room the relive Dr Kleiner. "How's it look, Isaac?"

The balding man shook his head and put his face into his hands for a moment. "There was another shooting a couple of minutes ago. One of the aliens actually appeared behind our gates but luckily the soldier outside shot it anyway. I don't want to jinx it, but.. we've really been lucky so far."

Vance looked at him confused for a moment and kleiner stammered. "Ah, no, I mean.. I' sorry, I didn't mean to,-" Eli shook his head. "It's fine, I understand what you mean. And you're right. I just hope things keep on being so.. peaceful."

They nodded at one another before switching places, Kleiner taking his postion in te living room again. That had been oh-so-many hours ago. After Alyx had finally fallen asleep he'd put her to bed in one of the guest bedrooms and ent back into the living room. Magnusson had brought out an expensive bourbon and was filling three glasses as he joined them. "Oh, are we going to get drunk now?"

Isaac looked at him for a moment before taking up his glass and took a mouthful of the golden liquid. He savored it a a moment before answering. "Excellent brew, magnusson, you did not exaggerate." The colleague grunted agreeing, emptiing his own glass in one swift motion. Isaac motioned Eli to sit down again. "We decided to watch the news and agreed to not do so in a sober mindframe."

Vance looked at them in uncertainty. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know what was happening.

Area 52, Colorado

"Get down!" A couple of grenades went of at the same time before another group of soldiers stormed outside. Breen tried his best to keep a calm facade as he walked behind the officer who escorted him through the area. The base was already swarming with aliens though they were kept at bay for the moment. Blaring horns, deafining explosions and the all-surrounding screams of soldiers and aliens alike made it impossible to speak right now but by now, Breen was pretty sure why he had been brought here anyway. They reached an elevator and went up for a while. The administrators eyes traced the battlefield, trying to figure out what was going on. Sure, he'd observed the aliens who kept spawning in earth for a couple of days now, but the current situation seemed.. different. All aliens he had seen so far had come in very small groups, often confused as to how they got here, consisting of different types of aliens which did not work together all that well, all of them violently attacking whatever was in their way. The aliens he could see now looked different. For one, they had a different shape and a different size. In the distance he could see something that looked like some sort of military alien division – one tall, white creature in a black armor which seemed to only have one large foot up front, basically looking like a mixture of a man with a very small head and a big white snail. He was followed by a couple of dozen brown aliens that looked sort of humanoid but without heads. Breen shuddered. The group moved with a military purpose and precision that was frightening.

Was this becoming an actual invasion?

The elevator stopped and he was brougt into a conference room were a bunch of military men looked at him expectandly. He recognized Colonel Henderson who sat at the head and got up as he came in. "Ah, Dr Breen. Just the man we've been waiting for. Please explain to my colleagues the background of the hell you and you're colleagues have brought upon all of us."

Breen looked at expressionles for a moment before cocking an eybrow. "Don't act as if you don't have anything to do with this, Henderson. You and other parts of the military and the government have long been in the knowledge about our experiments and have even pushed quite a few of them. This is as much on you as it is on me.", he said, speaking in a calm but firm voice. He positioned himself beside the whiteboard and continued to speak to the table at large. "The Black Mesa research facility has been conducting experiments regarding teleportation technology for more than fifteen years now. More than fourteen years have been with the government's knowledge and founding. Part of the current experiments was to insert a special kind of crystals into our anti-mass-spectrometer, each time gathering data that helped us to make the tecnology safer and more reliable. We have used it to obtain knowledge and to develop weapons for the military, many of which are in action today. The occurrence of a reasonance cascade as it has happened now has always been a known possibility of our experiments – known to us, the governement and the military alike. Since you have nuked black mesa it is reasonable to assume that the resonance cascade itself has already ended at the time the bomb went off. What we are experiencing now are so-called portal storms which is something that most of you probably already knew. They should end in a couple of days and are unpredictable in their patterns. The only thing we do know is that they should end as soon as the amount of fluortic hexoxretehtens in our athmosphere has diminished again."

Henderson drummed with his hands on the table, glancing from his colleagues back to breen. "Any idea when that will be or how that can be measured?"

"Well.. should be any minute, really. I could probably build a hexoxmeter but without the equipment you nuked I would need a few weeks to craft it.", he said, resenting the enviornment. He was used to work with the military but he didn't like being presented like this as if he was a prized animal in a zoo. He looked at the men and he could tell that they knew something he didn't. "I am willing to work with you and provide any assistance I can, but I'd like to be clued in as well if you don't mind.", his last words had a sharp edge to it and henderson looked at him annoyed and got up.

"Oh, you'd liked to be clued in, would you?" He was angry and walked over to him. "How about you'd have 'clued us in' about that 'spectacular' sample you got your hands on that was never cleared throuh shipment processing back to earth?! How about you'd have told us about you ordering your scientists to test the sample at 105%?! You knew damn well that the chances of a resonance cascade increase from 0.1% to 70 fucking percent when a sample is tested on that level!" his face was bright red and a steady spit-rain was pouring down on the administrator. He tried to keep a calm face and his gaze steady, but deep inside he felt the shame rise up in him. He had known all those things, but.. his work was too important to pass up an opportunity like that. Besides, if he had told the military about it, they would have greenlighted it anyway! Reliable transportation technology would have been an incredible advantage for the american army! The only difference beween him deciding this for himself and the government approving it was that this way he could have made a lot more money for himself out of this.

If this hadn't happened.

His mind began to wonder as the colonel kept on screaming about regulations and military protocol and how much of a dumbfuck he really was and so on. It wasn't the first time this man had screamed at him. In fact, the last time it had happened, Breen had just been waiting for the guy to hurl his lung out to beat him to death with it.

"...but you think your fucking brain is so fucking superior to any old fucker who spend all of his freking life maneuvering against hostile enemys because that's fucking easy which is exactly why your fucking security guards did such a good job to..."

Breen imagined painting a fence. It was a calming and funny mind exercise all the same. Calming because watching paint dry was really among the most boring things one could do and funny because it always reminded him of Tom Sawyers pranks.

As he felt that the rant was coming to an end he started to prepare whatever thing he was going to say next.

"Are you done being a moron?", he asked calmly. He didn't wait for an answer. "I know I screwed up. I am willing to try my best to make it up again. I was tempted by a good opportunity, as many of us are at some point in our life. It's easy to judge me. Had you been in my shoes, had you really acted so different? If we had succeded it might have been the key to solve planetary teleportation. Don't tell me you wouldn't have taken any risk necessary for the possibilty of gaining the biggest militery advantage in the history of humanity. You could have killed anyone at any second, anywere on the planet at any time of day with this technology, as long as you knew were they were. Don't tell me you don't long for this power. You would have danced with this devil twice as fast as I did."

Scientist and Soldier stared at one another, coldly. Henderson showed his teeth for a second before punching breen on the nose hard. "Get to work."


End file.
